And if You Keep Making Left Turns
by Illeana Starbright
Summary: The last thing Maeve Ryan expected out of her morning was getting flung from a car crash into a world that shouldn't even be real. Trapped in a video game she's spent less than an hour on, Maeve struggles to find a way home in a world that is quickly going down the drain.
1. Chapter I

Before we begin, I owe a huge thank you to _snowcloud8_ , my awesome friend and incredibly helpful beta reader. Without her, this story would have stayed a bunch of half baked ideas, or would have become a mess of awkward cliches that nobody wants to have to deal with. Her help and willingness to let me bounce a ridiculous number of ideas off of her has made this story better than I could have ever hoped for. Thanks so much for all you do, _snowcloud8_!

As a quick further note, the story title comes from a comedy sketch by Frank Caliendo about John Madden announcing a NASCAR race. The title for this chapter comes from _Alexander and the Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day_ by Judith Viorst. I own nothing of FFXV you recognize and reviews are welcome, although flames will be used to burn Ardyn's stupid hat. Enjoy!

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 _Chapter I: The Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day_

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Of all the things Maeve Ryan had thought would happen today, going ice skating in a car hadn't even come close to making the list. Of course, destiny hadn't bothered to ask what she wanted before it sent her world spiraling out of control in an unexpected car crash. The day had started off so well too. Maeve had been curled up in the back passenger side seat, fingers tapping out a text to Grayson, informing her big brother that she and their parents were on their way to pick him up, even though he'd still be on an airplane for a couple more hours and unable to see the message. Her iPod was on shuffle in her lap, the tail end of a piece from one of her favorite movies sweeping through her earbuds as she'd typed.

The car had shimmied a little but Maeve had ignored it. She'd spent her entire life in Northern Indiana, so a little fishtailing during the winter was perfectly normal. What was also normal was her dad impulsively hitting the brakes. Matthew Ryan had grown up in Tennessee in a small town where snow on the ground meant school was cancelled for the day while the one snow plow in the county trundled around clearing roads. He'd gotten better at driving during the winter after he'd married Lydia Frye and the two had moved to Northern Indiana, closer to her parents, but he'd never quite broken the habit of hitting the brakes the instant the car swerved a little. Normally it was a harmless habit, but occasionally it could be dangerous, which was why Maeve's mother normally drove during long winter trips.

The brakes on the car locked up. Maeve let out a startled yelp as the entire vehicle jolted sideways and her head snapped up in time to see the semi clip the front corner of their car. The world around her began to blur as the car spun and Maeve flung out a hand, the one not clutching her phone to her chest, to steady herself. The heel of her hand hit the seatbelt button just as the first tree branch clipped their car with a horrible shriek. Maeve was flung towards the opposite side of the car. Somehow the door had been ripped off during the accident and she went soaring through the empty space where it should have been, cold air stinging her cheeks and making her eyes water before she hit the ground, earbuds ripping out of her ears and flying into the distance with her iPod.

The impact tore huge gouges in her blue jeans and ripped skin off the palm of her left hand that she'd shoved down in a vain attempt to stop her momentum. She tumbled sideways, back smacking into rough dirt hard enough to knock all the air out of her lungs, leaving her gasping as she ended up on her knees again, one bloody palm pressed against the ground and the other still clutching her phone to her chest. For a moment, what she was staring at was shocking enough that she didn't notice the pain. There was dirt beneath her palm and knees, cracked from heat. She gaped at it, still sucking in big gulps of air to replace what she'd lost in the impact. There should have been snow on the ground, freezing her palms and numbing the ache in her knees as icy wind dried the panicked sweat sticking her hair to the back of her neck. Instead it was hot enough that she was glad her heavy sweatshirt had fallen off one of her shoulders.

Maeve could hear the tiny strains of music coming through her earbuds and lifted herself carefully to her knees, glancing to her left. She took in the sight of a few scraggly looking plants scattered across the ground and the white wires of her earbuds curling and twisting almost elegantly towards the scarred blue paint of her iPod which seemed miraculously unharmed by the crash that had sent her flying. She started at it blankly, mind struggling to process what was going on until a grey clawed paw came down on it, cracking the screen and silencing it for good. Maeve looked up and took in the sight of something that belonged in a horror movie. The creature was skin and bones, a walking skeleton of a dog with the juts of its spine rising up in a horribly uncomfortable looking way. It looked like it wouldn't be out of place if it were in the opening song of _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ instead of standing in the middle of some kind of desert.

"What. The. Fuck," Maeve found herself saying, shock making each word its own sentence. Her voice sounded loud in the sudden silence and she clapped her bloody palm over her mouth, half expecting her mother to scold her for using that kind of language. Instead she found the creature staring directly at her, a long tongue rolling out from between massive fangs. It looked like it had just found its next meal laid out for it. She had a brief moment to feel her stomach sinking down towards her toes before the creature lunged towards her with alarming speed.

Maeve forced herself to her feet, doing her best to ignore the way her bleeding knees screamed in protest, and sprinted away, scanning her surroundings frantically for some place to hide. After running cross country for close to eight full years, Maeve knew for sure that she was an endurance runner, not a sprinter, especially not with her knees stinging with every step. A bulky shape to her left caught her attention and Maeve swerved towards it, praying that it wasn't another monster.

It was a car instead of a monster and for a brief instant Maeve thought that he parents had gotten dragged along on this crazy adventure with her. Then she realized the car was red, not dark blue like her parent's vehicle. She didn't realize until she was a few feet away that there were two bodies slumped inside the car. She was close enough to see that the woman leaning over the steering wheel was bleeding from the head when the second monster leaped onto the hood of the car, the aluminum shrieking under sharp claws. Its eyes snapped to her almost immediately and she could see its muscles bunching just before it leaped towards her.

Maeve shrieked, backpeddling and actually tripping over her own feet in her haste to get away. She crashed to the ground, the impact sending jolts of pain through her already aching limbs, and could only stare with wide eyes at the skin and bones monster that was going to end her. Its jump had landed it a couple yards away and it was stalking towards her with small, fluid steps. Maeve found that she couldn't look away, even though she knew the first one had to still be approaching her from behind, ready to strike. She pressed her free hand against the ground, the other still uselessly clutching her phone to her chest like it was the only thing keeping her alive, and struggled to get to her feet again as the monster in front of her leaped again.

She had only a brief moment to panic, realizing that she wasn't going to get back on her feet in time to dive aside, when someone tackled her hard enough to send both of them flying sideways. The skidding stop they came to shoved Maeve's tank top and heavy sweatshirt up her side, probably bloodying her up further, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Instead she was too busy focusing on the fact that she wasn't, in fact, dead. The bulky form above her was already moving, practically lifting her off the ground to pull her with him. Part of her mind noticed that he hadn't bothered to button his shirt up when he'd gotten dressed in the morning, a hysterical giggle rising up in her throat. She forcibly shoved that part down as she was dumped none too gracefully onto her feet and shoved forward.

"Move," a gruff voice snapped at her and Maeve forced her feet to work again, ignoring the fact that every step hurt. Behind her one of the creatures let out what was a pitiful sounding whine of pain, but she forced herself not to look back. The last thing she needed to do at the moment was to trip over her own feet because she wasn't paying attention to where she was going.

The second one practically appeared at Maeve's left, its long, loping strides easily keeping pace with her. She silently began cursing the fact that she hadn't decided to take up track just to improve her sprints. The monster lunged at her and Maeve flinched as she was grabbed and shoved behind her unexpected savior. She found herself gaping as he pulled a sword out of thin air and sliced at the monster, who darted back with a vicious sounding snarl before darting forward again.

A hand at her arm made her flinch and she whirled around to face wild blonde hair and bright blue eyes. "Come on," the boy said urgently, lightly tugging at her arm, and Maeve forced herself into motion again, trying her best to ignore the sounds of fighting behind her. Her hands were trembling uncontrollably and she was stumbling a little as she ran, the events of the day catching up to her. A tiny voice in the back of her head was still shrieking that the guy who'd tackled her out of the way had pulled a weapon out of thin air and that wasn't normal, but now wasn't the time to focus on that.

A third creature came from behind a shrub that Maeve didn't think it should physically have been able to hide behind, teeth bared. It dove at them and they split apart like it was some kind of action movie choreography, Maeve going left and the blonde boy going right. He landed in a graceful roll, snatching a pistol out of thin air in a flash of blue light, firing at the creature as he was rising to his feet. Maeve landed in a rough tangle of limbs, somehow still clinging to her cell phone, and scrambled clumsily to her feet in time to see a dark haired boy that looked like he was about the same age as herself and the blonde, appear out of literally nowhere to plant a sword in the monster's face in what looked like an excessively overkill move. That was the moment when Maeve finally realized exactly where she was.

 _"Holy crap_ _,"_ she hissed under her breath, knowing her eyes had to be wide with shock. She'd somehow ended up in a video game. It sounded like a horribly cliche fanfiction written by a thirteen year old, even in her head, but the evidence stacked up before her was making it difficult to come to any other conclusion. She bit down on her lower lip, swallowing a hysterical giggle as her mind pointed out that if this were a fanfiction, she'd at least be in one of her favorite games, not one that she'd only played for an hour at her best friend Elizabeth's house and only knew the basic plotline of.

The urge to laugh abruptly faded when she realized that no one would know what had happened to her. The paramedics would arrive at the scene of the crash to find her parents and maybe her winter coat that had been folded up in the passenger seat. They wouldn't find her. Eventually someone would realize that Grayson was at the airport and hadn't been told about they accident. They'd have to go pick him up and tell him everything, including the fact that his little sister was missing. Grayson would be stuck all alone with two parents that were critically injured, if not dead, and a missing sister on what was supposed to be his first day home from Iraq.

Her breath hitched in her throat, the entire situation no longer funny, and she could feel tears building up. The blonde boy must have noticed because he reached out a careful hand to rest it on her shoulder, saying, "Hey, are you okay?" That was when the events of the day finally caught up to her and Maeve, predictably, burst into tears.


	2. Chapter II

Thank you to everyone who favorited and followed! The title for this chapter comes from the first chapter of Douglas Adams' _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy._

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 _Chapter II: A sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard"  
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Prompto had wanted a break from pushing the useless hunk of metal the Regalia had turned into the instant it broke down, but jumping into a fight with a pack of hunting Sabertusks hadn't exactly been what he'd had in mind. Now, panting for breath next to someone he'd just met, he decided that he was done complaining about pushing the Regalia so long as they made it to the repair shop in Hammerhead without any more incidents. He really didn't want to do anymore running after pushing a black car for miles in blazing sunlight, sweat sticking his clothes to his skin and the metal painfully warm against his fingers.

A hitched breath caught his attention and he turned to face the girl next to him. He hadn't paid much attention to her earlier, more focused on getting her out of the range of the Sabertusks than what she looked like. The strawberry blonde hair was a shock, even if it was leaning closer to the red end of the spectrum than blonde. Lucis was the land of dark hair, full of more shades of brown and black than Prompto thought should have been possible. Occasionally you ran into a Lucian whose hair fell on the darker end of the blonde spectrum, but only if they had an ancestor from Tenebrae or Niflheim, though if it was the latter, the ancestor was only mentioned in hushed whispers.

Her breath hitched again and deep green eyes welled with tears. _Oh crap,_ Prompto thought, his own eyes widening. _Please don't cry._ The last time he'd been around a crying girl, it'd been Iris and Gladio had looked like he'd wanted to murder Prompto before Iris had managed to inform her big brother that he was terrorizing the wrong person. "H-Hey, are you okay?" he managed to get out, stuttering a little as he struggled to push through the first word and stretching out his empty hand to rest it on her shoulder. To his consternation, his poor attempt in trying to waylay her tears only made her start sobbing.

Prompto found himself staring helplessly at her, the hand holding his gun hovering uselessly at his side while the one that had been on her shoulder dropped to his side, twisting anxiously in the hem of his shirt. He opened his mouth and then shut it a moment later, realizing he had no idea what he should say. Stumped, he glanced over at Noctis, only to have his best friend shrug in response.

Gladio saved both of them from making the girl's day any worse, dismissing his sword and sweeping in from the sidelines like some fairytale prince charming. "Hey, hey, it's all right," Prompto heard him say in the same gentle tone of voice he'd used on Iris that day. "Everything's going to be okay." Prompto watched with no small amount of awe as Gladio guided the sobbing girl carefully over to sit on one of the larger rocks around them, taking their first aid kit from Iggy, and working on patching her up, talking the whole in the same tone of voice. It was working too. The girl's sobs were slowing down, her shoulders no longer shaking from the force of them.

Prompto glanced away, shuffling his feet awkwardly as his shoulders rose up towards his ears as if trying to block out the sound. He glanced over at Noctis only to catch his friend beating a hasty retreat towards Ignis, who was examining the one of the dead Sabertusks, probably trying to figure out what had been wrong with them. While the creatures were normally aggressive towards local wildlife and humans alike, they didn't usually go after cars. Like most predators, Sabertusks weren't interested in wasting energy over something that might not even earn them a meal, but the deep scrapes on the sides of the car and the shredded back tires that Prompto had gotten a good look at while Gladio had gone diving pretty much head first into the situation, had told a pretty clear story.

"Prompto!" The blonde jumped and whirled around to find himself face to face with Gladio, or well, face to chest because Prompto wasn't a hulking behemoth, or even anywhere close to that. "Stay with her," the Shield ordered, tilting his head slightly towards the girl. "I'm going to check on the car."

"Yeah, sure thing," he replied with as much confidence as he could muster, inwardly panicking. The girl wasn't crying anymore, but she had her arms wrapped tight around her stomach and her breath was hitching every couple minutes. Prompto approached her the same cautious way he did the alley cats in Insomonia when he was trying to get a photo of them. She glanced up at him with red rimmed eyes and he struggled to keep his smile in place. "Um, hi."

"Hi," she croaked back. "I, uh, I'm Maeve, Maeve Ryan." She managed a weak, wobbly smile and Prompto practically beamed at her in pure relief.

"Prompto Argentum. Nice to meet you," he replied brightly before deflating a bit and added, "Although it could have been under better circumstances." Her lower lip wobbled at that and a couple tears dripped down her cheeks before she lifted a shaking hand to quickly swipe them away.

"Yeah," she agreed, voice wavering a bit. Her breath hitched again, shoulders flinching with the force of it. Some of Prompto's growing panic and dismay must have shown on his face because she said, "Sorry. It's, uh, it's been a really horrible day."

"I bet," Prompto agreed, settling carefully next to her and bumping his shoulder lightly against hers. She managed a weak smile at that, before flinching at the sound of a slamming car door, her head dipping towards the ground.

"They're dead, aren't they?" she said, her voice hollow. Prompto didn't reply, glancing over towards Gladio. The Shield was turning away from the wrecked vehicle, his expression grim. That told Prompto everything he needed to know.

"I'm sorry," he told her and felt her shoulders slump.

"It's not your fault," she told him, voice muffled and shaking. He looked over to see she was crying again, hands pressed to her face. Prompto hesitated a moment before cautiously putting his arm around her shoulder, half afraid she was going to break into a thousands pieces the instant he touched her. Instead she leaned into him, letting out quiet, hitching sobs.

The others kept their distance until her crying slowed down again, Ignis and Gladio presumably coming up with a game plan since local authorities wouldn't come out this far. Not with the risk of monsters hunting them down while they were out of their vehicles. He'd learned that much from listening to his mother talk about her journalism assignments when he was younger. Plenty of people died between towns and nobody found out until days later because of the monsters. They'd have to get Maeve to Hammerhead just so she could file an incident report, and judging by the bloodstains on the knees of her jeans and how thick the bandages around her palm were, she wouldn't be helping to push the Regalia, not that he blamed her. She'd had a long enough day already.

Maeve scrubbed at her cheeks with her unbandaged hand as Ignis approached, adjusting his glasses for a moment as he stopped in front of them. "We need to head to Hammerhead so we can file an incident report and it would be best to get there before nightfall so we don't have to fight daemons on the way there. Since we still have to push the Regalia, we should leave sooner rather than later."

Prompto groaned a little as he stood, not thrilled about having to move something that was supposed to be moving them, and held out a hand to Maeve when he noticed she wasn't moving. She took it carefully in her bandaged hand, the other scooping up her phone and clutching it to her chest. It looked like an older version, chunkier than the one Prompto had left in the Regalia. He wondered if it even still worked after everything it had probably been through during the day. Probably not.

The strawberry blonde wobbled a little, clinging to Prompto's hand for support before steadying herself and relaxing her grip. The three of them made their way back towards the road, Ignis settling in place so he was purposefully between Maeve and the wrecked car. The Regalia came in sight just around the corner, Noct leaning against the vehicle despite the blistering heat of the black painted metal, eyes fixed on his phone. Gladio was standing next to him, keeping watch, as always.

"We need to get moving," Ignis said when they approached, "so we can reach Hammerhead before nightfall." He turned to Maeve then and added, "I hate to ask this of you since you've just been in a car accident, but we need someone to steer the vehicle while we push."

"I think I can manage that," the strawberry blonde replied, fingers squeezing against Prompto's nervously. "I mean, I've done it before. You just keep the car on the road and break if it starts going too fast down hills, not that there's very many hills here."

"You don't have to do this if you aren't comfortable with it." Ignis's voice was gentle, cutting through her babble. "You've just been through a traumatic experience. It is completely understandable if you are not comfortable being in another vehicle so soon after the first accident."

Prompto could see Gladio and Noct paying attention now over Ignis's shoulder while Maeve chewed lightly on her lower lip. Prompto squeezed her hand lightly, the same way his mother had when she'd walked him to and from elementary school for four years. That had been before the war between Lucis and Niflheim had ramped up again and their jobs had kept them away from home for increasingly long periods of time. "I can handle it," Maeve said at last, squeezing his hand back almost absently. "At least I'm pretty sure I can. If not we'll find out quickly, because I'll have a complete meltdown the instant the car starts moving." She flashed a weak little smile and Ignis nodded once, stepping aside.

Gladio and Noct were both staring now and Prompto suddenly became very aware that he was still holding Maeve's hand. He dropped it almost instantly, feeling like his cheeks were burning and that he was going to die of embarrassment, but Maeve didn't seem to notice. Instead she was already heading towards the Regalia, hesitating a moment before opening the driver's side door and stepping inside. "Let's get pushing then. The car isn't going to move itself," Gladio announced, heading for the back with Ignis only pausing to murmur a few instructions to Maeve before following him.

"I thought the _car_ was supposed to move _us_ ," Prompto whined for the third time that afternoon even as he took up his position at the passenger side door, Noctis opposite him on the driver's side.

"Can it," Gladio growled. "Ready...Steady...Push." The car inched forward under their hands, Prompto's muscles aching in protest from the strain almost immediately, and once again they were headed towards Hammerhead, now with one more person than they'd had a few minutes before.


End file.
